


belief

by boxofnothing



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Distrust, Foster Care, Hope, Loss of Faith, Magic, Oneshot, Pregnancy, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15013712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofnothing/pseuds/boxofnothing
Summary: Throughout Emma's life she has lost parts of herself.





	belief

**Author's Note:**

> So I was at work and BORED OUT OF MY MIND, so I ended up going through my Google Drive which I might say is a very deep and scary place and I found this bad boy. Now I wrote this baby a long time ago and it is actually posted on Fanfiction which I have kinda abandoned but I really like this one and I really edited it so if you actually happened to read it on FF which probably isn't the case it is different.
> 
> Anywho I hope you enjoy it and always kudo it up at the bottom and remember to leave a review you would want to receive because that should be the default. And if you've received one of my long winded reviews then you know what I mean.

**......**

Six year olds believe in everything. They believe in princesses and princes and true love and especially magic.

The five letter word meant the world to all six year olds, but it meant even more to Emma.

Magic was the only thing that could get Emma away from the life she was living. It brought her to a world where she had a mom and dad, who loved her more than life. Magic could take here away to Neverland to fly and live forever.

Magic was her happily ever after. It let her imagine what life might be like if she wasn’t herself. If she was instead a fairy, a mermaid, or even a dragon slayer. Six year old Emma didn’t care if the other kids at her foster home called her stupid or dumb for believing in magic.

Magic was real and she was sure she had it.

Six year olds have nothing better to do than dream of their own fairy tale endings and of magic.

**......**

Ten year olds don't believe in magic. They know it doesn't exist, but that can't stop them from hoping it still does.

Emma has known for years now that magic doesn't exist. Her years of dreaming and wish making had long since ceased, but she still hopes.

She hopes someone will one day love her.

She hopes that she will be adopted.

She hopes she will be more than just a lost girl.

She hopes that magic exists, so that her life will be more than just the current foster home she resides in.

Emma doesn't dream of magic anymore, but she does hope because ten year olds don't believe in magic, they hope it exists.

**......**

Sixteen year olds don't hope anymore. They don't get their hopes up only to have them shatter around them.

Emma stopped hoping the moment she realized that no one will ever want her and that was years ago. She stopped getting her hopes up every time she saw parents come to look for their soon to be kids only to look immediately past her.

She stopped hoping for the flickering light bulb in her closet to be magic.

She stopped hoping for the next foster home to be better than the last because it wasn’t going to be. It was going to be worse.

If she stopped hoping then the things she ended up getting wouldn’t disappoint.

She’s learned that hopes don’t get you places. You get you places. She only did what she was capable of because she didn’t let herself down and she only trusted what she could do.

She didn't want to be crushed. So she didn't hope anymore.

**......**

Most eighteen year olds trust people. They have faith that the people around them won't hurt them.

Emma didn't trust people. She didn't get close to people to let them really know her.

She stopped trusting people the day she sat on a cot in a prison cell with a positive pregnancy test in her lap. That was the day she no longer had faith in people. That was the day that Emma built walls around what she had left of a heart. The little she had left had been drained of belief and hope and faith. This was the day Emma grew colder. The warm little six year old that she used to be had been killed and now replaced, replaced by the cold, distrusting, imprisoned woman.

She knew in that moment that she couldn’t even trust herself.

She couldn’t trust herself to give the new life, full of belief, hope, and faith, what it really needed to not become her. She so desperately wanted to trust herself but she couldn’t. She had lost even that.

Since Emma had nothing to give left, she gave the little bundle of belief, hope, and faith away, so that it wouldn't turn into what she had become.

**......**

Most twenty eight year olds aren't alone. Their surrounded by family and friends. They are loved and love back. They aren't scared.

Emma was alone though. She had no family and hadn't ever. She didn't love anyone and hadn't since she had been betrayed and had her heart put out on display for all to see. But Emma wasn't scared. She wasn't afraid to brave the world alone. So on her birthday she lit the candle and for the first time since she was six, she made a wish and allowed herself to believe in magic.

Believe that something would come and bring happiness into her life.

With that tiny flicker of magical hope it allowed Emma to make that wish and let Emma climb out of the empty void Emma had decided to live in.

**......**


End file.
